


Leaving, Looking Back

by roadtripexpert



Series: so if you think it's love [2]
Category: The Miseducation of Cameron Post - Emily M. Danforth
Genre: Continuation of the movie, Drug Use, Gen, Homelessness, IT'S GAY, Multi, a majestic butch lady was driving that truck and you can't tell me any differently, gnc character(s), good gay allies, good helpful gay college students, okay so cam's a lesbian but Adam is Not a Dude so i can do whatever i want, so basically i watched the movie again and i have feelings, so basically: a prologue because i was sad, they live on the road and love each other like family: electric boogaloo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 15:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21304478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadtripexpert/pseuds/roadtripexpert
Summary: Yes. It’s going to be alright.
Relationships: Jane Fonda & Cameron Post & Adam Red Eagle
Series: so if you think it's love [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535897
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	Leaving, Looking Back

**Author's Note:**

> A beginning and an end.

It’s cold, and Cam is tired. Bone tired, the kind of tired you get after running, after nightmares, after adrenaline. She feels it seeping into her bones as she rests her head on Jane’s shoulder. She has just run away from the longest nightmare of her life. She holds Adam’s hand over Jane’s lap, and breathes, and breathes like she hasn’t in months. She tries very hard to cry, but she does anyway. 

Jane looks at her, her cheek brushing the top of Cam’s head.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Cam smiles, and laughs a little, wipes her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I’ll be okay.” Jane nods knowingly and wraps her arms around Cam like a promise.  _ Yes. It’s going to be alright. _

The woman who gave them a ride is named Trisha and she’s the most majestic butch lesbian Cam has ever seen. She lets them off at a campground with the promise to check in on them later and a salute. She knew about God’s Promise when she pulled over, like she could smell it on them. 

“I want you to be safe out there,” she said before leaving them. 

They nodded, unsure if they could. Cam clutched Adam’s arm. 

There’s a small wooden structure that looks like the registration office. There’s no one at the desk, and so they sit with hands folded on laps on plastic chairs. No one comes. 

“Come on, let’s see if there’s like...tents we can borrow or sleeping bags in the back,” Jane says, and they sneak silently behind the desk. 

Cam jingles a set of keys, one of many. “Bet there are cabins.” 

“Rock on,” Jane says, as Cam tosses them at her, laughing. 

They stay there three nights, stealing out to chat with the other campers, eating food with whoever liked them enough for their conversation and leftover weed, before the cabin was inspected for use and they ran out laughing to the highway again. 

Cam didn’t think to call anyone for a long time. She didn’t think it would be safe. Adam and Jane were too preoccupied in being free to think with any kind of foresight. It was early mornings sitting in cafes until they were kicked out, hitchhiking, sleeping in whatever bed was open to them. They did not have a plan. Cam tried to call Coley once and she didn’t pick up, and she felt like shit the rest of the day. 

They’re sitting under a bridge next to a reservoir when Cam brings it up. 

“I have a friend in Portland that I can call. And a family friend.”

“What?” Adam says, with a laugh in his voice, before he looks at Cam and sees she’s dead serious. “What do you mean.”

“I mean, I have an out, maybe. And I kind of need to get out of Montana, I think we all should until we turn eighteen.” She looks at Jane pleadingly. She’s always been the pragmatic one, the one with the plan. Jane nods sagely. 

“Yes. I did say that, before, that we should figure out our own shit before we meet up again. And we all knew this wasn’t going to be sustainable.”

Adam glares into the water.

“Hey,” Jane says, and puts a hand on his arm. “It’s not forever. But we can’t live like this for more than a year. You know that.” 

Adam nods. “I felt like we were making it, you know.”

“Adam, it’s about to be winter,” Cam says. The reservoir has already started freezing overnight. Their sleeping bags are all laid out under the bridge. 

He bumps his head against her shoulder. “I know.” 

She kisses the top of his head. “We’re going to make it.”

It takes them another month of transit, and youth hostels, and friendly gay university students to make their separate plans. 

El, who’s stowing them in her dorm room for the first weeks of winter, helps them make calls and shields them from her RA. 

She brings them pasta and beer on their last night. 

They lie on the twin sized bed, drunk and high, singing along softly to the radio. Jane takes a picture. 

“I’m sorry,” El says, “I wish I could have helped you more.” 

Yesterday Adam called a family friend, and he finally picked up. Jane set something up on the Canadian border, an old friend with an empty bed. Cam called Lindsey. Easy as that. 

“Pasta and beer’s good,” Jane slurs. Adam is laughing uncontrollably. Cam wants to hold them in her mind forever.

She wakes up early for her flight, grabs her bag, and lightly shakes Adam and Jane awake, laughing softly at their complaints. 

“Hey, goodbye. See you soon”

“Goodbye, godspeed, good luck,” Jane says, kissing her own hand and aiming at her direction “I love you.” Cam scrunches her nose as Jane’s hand collides with her face.

“Love you too.”

Adam is more awake, sitting up and looking at her with an expression she cannot parse.

“Sorry,” she says, then kisses him softly on the mouth. Maybe because she’s hungover, and tired, or there’s precedent or because it feels like the best thing to give him so he won’t get those sad eyes.

“What’d you do that for,” he says sleepily. Holding his hand on her cheek, smiling.

“Wanted to say goodbye.” 

She calls a taxi from the campus with the money El gave her, and thumbs at the almost expired driver’s license in her pocket. As she looks for her terminal, and checks her ticket one more time, she can’t help but feel the loneliest she’s felt in a long time. She is just one person, with one backpack and set of clothes to her name. She boards her plane wearily, sits down and watches her home tumble away from her.  _ Soon,  _ she thinks,  _ a year from now I’ll be back.  _


End file.
